Craig Shapiro

Craig Shapiro is a founder and managing partner of Collaborative Fund.


Consumer Brands and Essential Inputs

From our very first investment in Kickstarter back in 2010, backing consumer startups has been at the core of Collaborative…

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Team Building

Winning is done by teams and I’m quite excited by the team at Collaborative Fund right now.

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The End of the Incandescent Light Bulb: A Failure of Technology and Markets

The Biden administration recently enforced a ban on the sale of traditional incandescent light bulbs, completing a years-long phase out…

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Quick Thoughts on AI

My feed has recently been filled with lots of thoughts, predictions, jokes, and more about ChatGPT.

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Team Building

Last week we gathered as a team in Venice Beach California.

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Five Questions for Charles Best

Charles Best is founder of DonorsChoose, a nonprofit that lets individuals donate directly to public school classrooms.

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First Investments from Shared Future Fund

Fresh off the heels of announcing the Shared Future Fund, we are excited to share its first batch of investments…

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Rapid Funding for Climate Solutions

Rapid Funding for Climate Solutions.

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Don’t Shine The Turd

Early on, when Collaborative Fund was just taking shape, I approached someone I respected and hoped would invest with us.

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Long Live the Library

When you speak to folks with niche passions about how they got into their craft, their stories are often similar.

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An Impact Investing Infographic

Collaborative Fund was founded a decade ago with the mission to support and invest in the shared future.

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Ahead Of The Curve

A friend recently sent me a video of an interview with Tony Hawk.

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Perception

There are so many factors that can hold a person back in this life.

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Investing In Health Data

We have harnessed technology to enable an incredible amount of information sharing around business and finance over the last two…

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Climate Change, Cow Burps, and ZELP

Last month the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest report which made clear that temperatures today…

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Social Fabric - Part Two

Religion was once the primary communal force in society.

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Work From Anywhere

Working from home predates the coronavirus crisis: the proportion of the US labor force working from home rose from nearly…

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Some Things We Are Doing About Coronavirus

With everything going on related to coronavirus, we’re doing a few things that we wanted to share with our community.

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Founders, VCs and Values – Thoughts on a Critical Moment

What happens when a founder’s interests are not aligned with those of the company and its shareholders…

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Q&A With Kimbal Musk, Cofounder of Square Roots & Board Director at Tesla, Space X, and Chipotle

Kimbal Musk started his career at Scotiabank.

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Q&A With Beyond Meat’s Executive Chairman, Seth Goldman

Seth Goldman is the Executive Chairman at Beyond Meat.

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Magic Spoon

Cereal is a thing. It is a big thing.

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Stop Giving Investment Advice

A fight broke out on Twitter recently.

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Notes From Collaborative’s 2019 Summit

Last week we held our eighth annual Founders Summit.

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A Day in the Life of Collaborative Fund

Time flies.

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Investing In Spyce

Collaborative Fund has backed several new retail concepts over the last five years, including, Blue Bottle Coffee, Sweetgreen, and byChloe.

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Big Opportunity (Sorting Data)

“The average person today receives more information on a daily basis, than the average person received in a lifetime in…

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Collaborative’s Future: More money, more solutions

Eight years ago we started with a thesis — the market was moving toward a sharing-based economy, consumers were looking…

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Team Collaborative

We are excited to welcome some new faces to the Collaborative team.

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Collaborative Fund’s 2018 Summit

Last week we held our seventh annual Collaborative Fund summit in San Francisco.

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Welcoming Taylor Greene

Today is an exciting day at Collaborative Fund.

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Negotiating

What’s the goal of a negotiation? It’s to get what you want in a situation where the other side wants…

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New York’s Venture Ecosystem Just Leveled Up

A consistent question I’ve received since starting Collaborative Fund in 2010 is why I founded the firm in New York…

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Knowing Your Audience

Every business is about solving other people’s problems.

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How Graffiti Got Me Into Tech

Morgan Housel and I recently recorded a conversation about our early careers.

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The Power Law At Work

One of Collaborative’s portfolio companies was acquired earlier this year, generating a fantastic return on our investment.

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Companies We’re Excited About

We look at hundreds of companies as potential investments each month.

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An Open Call for Internet Access

Recent news that Alibaba and Tencent are investing $10B into China’s second largest mobile operator — China Unicom, got me…

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The Dam Breaks Toward Doing Good

This chart, from Morningstar, tells an amazing story…

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Dandelion

Collaborative Fund is excited to announce that we led Dandelion’s recent seed round.

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Passionate Goals

I recently watched a video of Brene Brown talking about the power of vulnerability.

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Backing the Good Guys

More investors want to back companies doing good in the world.

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The Hardest Part Of Investing Is Saying Yes

Most companies fail. There are an infinite number of reasons why.

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Values and Mission Alignment Throughout Our Organization

I first met Lauren Loktev in 2012.

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Sharing A Wealth of Knowledge

People have been learning machines for millions of years.

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Aligning Interests Is The Most Important Investment Trend

Everything we do at the Collaborative Fund is based around the belief that the world is moving toward a place…

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Investors Don’t Like Opportunistic Investments Until They Do

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes.

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Thank You Kanyi Maqubela

When I hired Kanyi back in 2011, he was an optimistic, smart, fun-loving, thoughtful person.

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It’s Time to Shake Up the Legal Industry

Close your eyes and picture the dream industry waiting to be disrupted.

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An Update on Collab+Sesame

Necessity is the mother of invention, so some of the most powerful innovations come from entrepreneurs solving their own problems…

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Voting With Your Dollars

Advertising used to be straightforward.

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Kids, Consumer, Health, Money, and Cities

Orit Gadiesh, the chairman of Bain & Company, once described an important trait of successful people: The ability to be…

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Businesses Need to Step Up!

I feel compelled to address this presidential election.

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The Collaborative Fund Turns Six: What I’ve Learned

Collaborative Fund is turning six years old.

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Collaborative Fund and Sesame Workshop Launch Collab+Sesame

We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with Sesame Workshop.

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Eight questions for Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte has been at the forefront of the digital revolution since the beginning.

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The Villain Test

At Collaborative Fund, the first question we ask ourselves when evaluating a new investment opportunity is: If this startup becomes…

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Collaborative’s next step

Today is an exciting day at Collaborative Fund.

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Aiming higher

I saw this tweet from Donda and it got me thinking ….

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Social good practices for companies

Because of Collaborative’s focus on investing in companies that push the world forward, I often meet entrepreneurs who have a…

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Building momentum vs. creating it

Venture capital is all about placing bets on the future.

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Social fabric

How do we find and connect with people with whom we share common values…

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Tackle the Impossible vs. Navigate the Impossible

The qualities that interest me the most in entrepreneurs are those in direct conflict with each other, like the tension…

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Our food system needs to be reshaped

Recently at Collaborative, we have been thinking a lot about food.

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Hiring the best

The most common pain point amongst the companies we invest in is hiring great people.

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What We Like

Collaborative Fund backs the shared future.

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Collaborative Fund Progress

A little more than three years ago, we launched Collaborative Fund with the goal of “investing in startups focused on…

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Celebrating Our Strong Roots: Chuck Templeton

I’ve started writing about how our Limited Partners (LPs) shape and influence us.

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Invest In Your Employees For Better Returns

In a recent New York Times article, Adam Davidson talks about two very different trips he took to Ikea five…

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Only Good News … Is Actually Bad News

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received came from an investor in Collaborative Fund.

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Celebrating Our Strong Roots: Chris Cerf

I recently wrote about the importance of having strong roots.

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Strong Returns Come From Strong Roots

One of the most important things about a person or organization is its roots.

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Unpacking Collaborative Fund’s Investment Thesis

Back in May of this year, we partnered with The Case Foundation to take the reins on Social Citizens…

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“Do Something Good, Feel Something Real”

That’s Ray Chambers describing what motivates him.

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Great Brands Scratch An Itch

Every person, every organization has itches.

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